Providence Granola joined the fun Saturday at the pop-up Buy With Heart Marketplace held at Brown University. The marketplace was hosted by the Social Enterprise Greenhouse and coincided with the 2016 SEEED (Social Enterprise Ecosystem for Economic Development) Summit in Providence.

As the Social Enterprise Greenhouse website notes, the 2016 SEEED Summit provides “a comprehensive support system to inspire, start, grow, and sustain successful social enterprises.”

The conference was “hosted jointly by Social Enterprise Greenhouse and The Social Innovation Initiative at Brown University, in collaboration with sponsors The City of Providence, The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation and Worldways Social Marketing, as well as knowledge partners Bridgespan and Neighborhood Economics/SOCAP.”

Mayor Jorge Elorza welcomes all to the 2016 SEEED Summit

Mayor Jorge Elorza welcomes all to the 2016 SEEED Summit

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza welcomed the participants and touted the city as “a great place to be if you’re an entrepreneur working in the innovation space.”

Here is Aline from Congo showing off some Providence Granola Project offerings at the marketplace. All products offered on Saturday were from businesses that aim to empower and not exploit.

Aline, one of PGP's newest employees, at Buy with Heart Marketplace.

Aline, one of PGP's newest employees, at Buy with Heart Marketplace.

In addition to Beautiful Day’s granola products, Buy with Heart shoppers could choose from the creations of social enterprises like these: Bellicchi's Best Biscotti, Cabot Cheese, summer camp Food And Truth & Fit2cook4kids, Illuminatebox for young Cameroonian entrepreneurs, Leah's Recipe, refugee-jewelry company Liberti, Mumma's Real Lemonade, AAM Global Mission, Riverzedge Arts, Tink Knit, a student-run social venture that helps single mothers earn an income, YANA (You Are Not Alone), and Vietnamese Gac Superfruit company XOI.

Many of these companies find ways to support one another, demonstrating that social enterprises have been among the first to illustrate the World Economic Forum mantra “The future of business will be defined by collaboration.”


Caroline Ellis of SuzannesMomsBlog submitted this post.

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